After the Fire
by Catherine Grissom
Summary: After the darkness has swallowed every sign, will you still be there...? Slight AxR post-series.


_**Title: After the Fire**_

_**Author: Catherine Grissom**_

_**Rating: T**_

_**Pairings/Warnings: A/R angst **_

_**A/N: Came to me while listening to Mad At Gravity's song 'Undefined'. Reviews and criticism welcomed. Flames will be used to roast marshmallows.  
**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own WHR. I do not own the song the title came from 'Undefined'.**_

The words may have been different, but what they expressed was: 'If you ever lose control, I will kill you.'

It wasn't a threat. It was a promise.

Her road would be a lonely one: her…gift (it was still difficult to even think of her pyrokinesis in even relatively positive terms) would ensure that. In his own brusque way, he'd been offering company. Company that had been accepted with a small smile and an even smaller nod.

That had been three years ago. The transition from the hunter to the hunted had been far too smooth for her liking, her partner far too prepared. He'd settled them in Europe, practically at the organization's door, insisting that they would be safe here, that the organization would not think to look in their own backyard.

He was mostly right. Fortunately, the only ones who'd found them had been sympathetic, had their own powers, knew that they could soon be in the same position.

There had been a few times where he'd almost been convinced she'd lost control. His posture would go rigid, eyes would become cold steel, hand would go for the gun he still wore.

But then there would be some flicker or…something. Something that would soften his eyes ever so slightly, loosen his shoulders ever so gently, slow his hand ever so subtly. And then the tension passed and they could both breathe again.

The gun remained holstered.

But now…

Now, she found that she didn't want it to. She could feel the heat, simmering just beneath the skin, waiting for the moment that would allow it to boil. To burn. To kill.

She knew how to stop it: cool metal against her temple and then blessed black.

'Do it,' she begged, silently or aloud, she wasn't sure. 'Please. Keep your promise. End it. End _me._'

She felt, rather than saw, the carpet catch; the plastic fibers, heating, melting, providing and outlet for her flame.

A click came from in front of her, over her bowed head, a sound she'd long since ceased fearing, and she raised her head from her arms to focus on him.

His holster was empty. The hunter had re-emerged. She nearly cried in relief.

Then she saw it.

It was small, easy to miss: a slight droop in his shoulders, a small tremor in his hands, a subtle sheen to his eyes.

He wouldn't do it.

He _couldn't_ do it.

He moved closer, rubber soles sticking to molten plastic.

The wall behind him tantalized the carpet's flame, offering it a more sumptuous meal.

He stood over her now, his large familiar frame towering over her small, defeated form.

A hand, callused and blessedly cool, rested itself at her cheek and she leaned into the contact. She was certain that the threatening scalding tears would sear his skin, but he didn't flinch away. His knees hit the polypropylene magma and she heard him hiss, but he didn't rise.

The hand cradling her cheek moved to the back of her head, trailing through cornsilk strands as if in a lover's embrace. A gentle pressure moved her head to his chest, tenderly firm arms held her there. Lips pressed words into her hair: a muffled baritone chant in a language she didn't understand.

The words cycled again and this time she caught them: "Me. Not her. Lord, not her. Not her."

A desperate last prayer from a broken man to his childhood's God.

The wall's dance ceased to entice. Rivers overflowed their dams, sending scalding streams down her cheeks. Spiraling flames calmed, crawled, humbled, back into their shell.

The plea continued. She clutched desperately at the man she'd only ever seen bend before, pressing her on gasping chant into his shirt.

"Please, let it be over. Tell me it's over."

Drops of moisture trickled over the searing skin at her temple, and his words changed.

"It's over. You're safe. It's over. I'm here."

The fire had retreated, lay dormant. The child in her mind sobbed in relief as the woman in her wept, dreading the flame's return, fearing that the darkened angel before her would not be enough to change Hell's course when it did.


End file.
